Ralph Waldo Emerson Trust 30 Challenge: Time to Connect.

This Trust 30 prompt is from David Spinks. Simple and straight forward the challenge is to reach out and connect with someone. But not connect with just anyone. Connect with someone I've wanted to connect with but lacked the courage to do so. Not just set the meeting but to reflect on why I want to meet and then set up the meeting.  Maybe the prompt isn't so simple after all.

A challenge for me in this prompt is to think about someone I really want to connect with. I'm comfortable with my circle and rarely feel a burning desire to push beyond these boundaries.  Perhaps that's why my circle is so small. Maybe my small circle is the best reason to pursue this prompt with gusto.

I thought for a bit and realized there was an old friend I should reconnect with.  I have known Racer X (not his real name) for well over 20 years. We've done youth work together and even sat on a charitable board together. He's always been amenable and approachable. The last time I saw X was almost 10 years ago. He had left a downtown law firm to set up a sports related law practice in the suburbs. From everything I can see, X and his practice have been successful.

About a month ago I had a thought about a promotion at a generally ignored annual sporting event in town. In line with my desire to build a service creating and officiating at secular lifecycle celebrations, the promotion is a group wedding for 10 couples. I would solicit local businesses to donate wedding themed prizes, with each couple winning something. One lucky couple would win a full wedding package (hall, food, music, photo, video, portrait, honeymoon). Couples could enter through lottery or contest via local radio station. The promotion has the potential to breathe life into a poorly covered event and create buzz about me.

Since X has connections in sports, I thought X would be the perfect source for help. I'm asking X for ideas on contacts and pitch. Most importantly, X can advise as to whether or not I should even pursue the plan. Why my reluctance to reach out to X? I haven't been in touch while he was building his practice, so now I'm calling because I need something? This isn't about X and the way X treats people. This is all in my head. In my head I see the opening of "The Godfather": "You come to me on the day of my daughter's wedding, but you've never come to me in friendship..."

I contacted X via LinkedIn and we've agreed to meet by phone this afternoon. I'll keep you posted.

Ralph Waldo Emerson Trust 30 Challenge: Invent the Future.

This prompt from Cindy Gallop is about setting long term goals.  Rather than a "to do list", the challenge is to paint the picture of my future. Once I see the future, I can go about the mundane task of filling in the details.

In the future, I see myself in a nice house with a white picket fence in the suburbs. I will have three nearly perfect children, Amanda, Xavier and Fred.  Wait, that's someone else's future. I gotta get a new crystal ball.

My future includes serving as a creator/facilitator of life cycle celebrations for the secular community.  I plan on speaking to secular humanist and atheist gatherings about the importance of ceremonial celebrations and explain the dynamics of creating life cycle events based on music, literature, science and history. My business will have been built via face to face networking and social media. I also will offer consulting to small businesses on building a business via social  media.  If I have time available, I have a very specific website in mind that I would love to develop.

That is a very aggressive future. It's time to start writing down the mundane details.

What about you? How do you see your future? Without a vision for your future you will merely travel life's path as a bystander and wind up living someone else's future. How can you start living your future today?

Ralph Waldo Emerson Trust 30 Challenge: Ambition is Good, Blind Ambition isn't Good.

This Trust 30 prompt is from Jonathan Fields. This prompt is about the hidden trap of realized goals. No one is clairvoyant. A goal reached can be significantly different than the goal imagined.To avoid this trap, one must always be open to alternative opportunities presented on the path to reaching the goal. Sometimes the outcome desired will be reached via an altered set of goals. It's impossible to find this altered goals with blind dedication to a primary plan. So...

This is one area in which my eyes are wide open. My path to lifecycle ceremony creator and facilitator for the secular actually begin as the goal of directing funerals for underserved communities in my city. Providing lifecycle ceremonies for an underserved community is a wider and more creative variation of the funeral director plan.

• I have already identified ancillary opportunities of the ceremony creator. One is to simply offer marriage ceremonies on a short time frame.  Are you moved to get married right now? In Illinois there is a mandatory 24 hour wait from permit to ceremony. Why go to city hall 2 days in a row. Get the permit and call me. We can meet at your residence, gym, office, favorite restaurant at a selected time. The couple has a more meaningful wedding. I get the opportunity to market myself and get paid.
• Another variation of ceremony creator is to team with local hotels and prepare memorial service (no casket) options. The hotel knows it's convention schedule 2-3 weeks in advance.  If the hotel is at less than capacity the opportunity to provide catering, rooms and services for a memorial service helps the hotel add revenue. For the family, the hotel has some of the items families may not have at home: projectors, sound system, large capacity, support staff, ample parking, etc. The opportunity to have the meal and service at the same location is a win-win for the family and hotel.

I am sure other opportunities will occur as I start and build my service business. I am also confident I will be open to evaluating those ideas and pursuing those ideas when the match is good. Thanks, Jonathan.

Emerson Trust 30 Challenge: Do What I Am Afraid To Do.

After a sabbatical from the Emerson Trust 30 Challenge, I find my self back in the box, so to speak. As I said in my post, "An Apology", life got in the way of confronting life. Frankly, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Prompt 9 from Mary Jaksch is about confronting that which I am afraid to do, or in this case, write about a topic that I would choose to not write about.

I could blog about bungee jumping or mountain climbing because I would never do either. I remember a former manager of mine saying, "There's a place where it's $99 for 2 bungee jumps." I replied, "Hell, I might jump twice to make $99." He told me, "No, it costs only $99 to jump twice". My response, "You pay to jump off a bridge with a big rubber band tied to your feet? Why would you do that?". He shook his head and walked away. Anyway, it's too simple to write about my fear of doing something corporal that I would indeed never do. There is no personal challenge in that.

I am most afraid of disappointing my family. Make that my wife and kids and marginally my mother. My mother was higher up on the list until I had a wife and kids. It's not that other family member don't matter but in fact other family members don't matter. I wouldn't go out of my way to make them angry, but if any family member other than my wife or kids are disappointed, oh well. In fact, outside of my wife and kids, others are unimportant.

My fear of disappointing wife and kids derives from my near 3 year period of unemployment. My plans are to open a service business to provide personalized life cycle celebrations, serving the secular/unaffiliated community. Failure or failing to bridge into other income producing areas could send everything into hell in a hand basket. My marriage is strong and house still owned but failure could cost both. Living in a box on the street is only marginally better than being dead on the street.  It would create the memories I would never want my kids to have. I'm sure all of us would survive the ordeal and sores would heal. Still, healed sores come with scars that are a constant reminder of the wound. Energy is a limited resource and I fear that I simply don't have the energy to invest in repairing the damage caused by homelessness and divorce. In that light, here's to success in all my future ventures.

Ralph Waldo Emerson Trust 30 Day Challenge: Day 3, I Am An Island.

Today's prompt is to write about a time you have stood alone contrary to the beliefs of friends and family. What drove or motivated you and how did you deal with the ramifications?

This challenge is extremely unsettling. I don't wear a mask to blog and I include my family when appropriate. I also don't blog with my blinds, windows and doors wide open. I strongly believe that:

• Family disagreements exist.
• Passionate people argue passionately.
• Disagreements and arguments are held behind closed doors.
• Once issues are resolved, parties to the disagreement face the public united.

Still, accepting a challenge means all in or not in at all.

To this point, my working life has always been as a professional employee. I had a union job and was paid above scale. Pension and family medical/dental+ were 100% employer paid. My position ended Sept., 2008. I have not had full time employment since.

Myself, my wife and our families know only the career path of an employee. Bot my brothers in law are talented. One is an artist, the other a financial planning trainer. Neither has chosen the path of business owner. One is a very successful employee and one would like to be an employee again. My wife wants me to follow in the footsteps of her successful employee brother.

I have chosen the path of an entrepreneur. I plan to launch a service business creating life cycle ceremonies for secular/unaffiliated families as soon as I can gather the $$ for domain and business cards. My wife is unhappy with my decision.

I am the sole provider for my family and I understand my wife's desire for stability. I am still networking for full time employment but as a middle ager+, I refuse to pine for and invitation to the prom after making it very clear I'm available as a prom date.

Most of the employees I know have taken pay reduction to stay employed. They put in extra hours and sweat each week's sales as though the business was their own.  I admire their work ethic. I might as well do the very same things for my own business.

It's apparent there is no resolution to this conflict between my wife and I as of yet. I am confident in my success but only time will tell.